Top Roller Coasters & Amusement Parks

Everybody loves a good amusement park and the best parks will not
soon be forgotten. While most theme parks are tons of fun, the largest draw for
any park are the roller coasters. It seems the most popular amusement parks are
in a fierce competition for the biggest, baddest, tallest, and fastest roller
coaster.

With the ongoing development of roller coasters around the
world, I'm sure that ultimate thrill ride is still out there for me to find.
Within these pages you'll find the roller coasters I've ridden so far and read
about why I liked them - or disliked them.

My Favorite Amusement Park

Cedar
Point is the roller coaster capital of the world with a record 17 roller
coasters of all kinds - stand up, wooden, steel, suspended, inverted and
racing. It is truly the park of choice for the aggressive roller coaster ride.
Year after year, in the ongoing quest of building the ultimate scream machine,
Cedar Point has a long history of being home to the tallest and fastest roller
coasters including Magnum XL-200, Mean Streak, Raptor, Mantis, Millennium
Force, and Top Thrill Dragster.

Raptor is an incredibly fun ride
where your feet dangle above ground from ski lift-like seats as you drop 119
ft. at speeds of up to 57 mph, scream through a 100 ft. vertical loop, a
heartline spin, a cobra roll and then into the mid-course brake. Next you fly
through a spiraling drop followed by a corkscrew, a straightaway, a dip,
another corkscrew, and a helix before heading back to the loading station.

My Favorite Steel
Roller Coaster

On Magnum XL-200, it's a frightening
feeling to crest the top of the 205 foot lift hill and not be able to see the
track below you. That incredible 60 degree drop is followed by another 157 foot
hill and the thrills don't let up from there. The tunnels during the day-time
ride are disorienting, but at night you get totally lost.

My Favorite Stand-Up
Coaster

Chang at Kentucky Kingdom gets my
vote for favorite stand-up coaster. Chang features a 144 foot drop and five
inversions including a 104-foot tall vertical loop. It also has two corkscrews,
an incline loop and a high-speed spiral. It's 4,155 feet of track will take you
up to 63 miles per hour where you'll experience a G force of 5.

This
coaster is really fun and incredibly smooth. It's longer ride is also greatly
appreciated. Kudos to Kentucky Kingdom for putting in this coaster as they
solidify their thrill ride prominence for coaster fans.

My Favorite Wooden
Coaster

The
Beast at Paramount's Kings Island gets my thumbs up as best wooden
roller coaster. The Beast has got to be the granddady of woodies as the longest
wooden coaster in the world with 7,400 feet of track, two lift hills, and
nearly 4 1/2 minutes ride time. It features a 135-foot hill at a 45-degree
angle followed by a 117 foot underground tunnel. After cresting the second lift
hill, the ride really gets intense racing through a 269-foot above ground
tunnel and a 540-degree helix.